


The War Won't Stop For The Love Of God

by Pluppelina



Series: I Need Some Fine Wine And You Need To Be Nicer [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Lots of Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Reichenfeels, SPOILERS FOR THE REICHENBACH FALL, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pluppelina/pseuds/Pluppelina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sebastian breaks down and Jim is going cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War Won't Stop For The Love Of God

Sebastian was supposed to meet Jim at that specific street corner at 4 p.m. It’s now 4.02. Jim is never late, and, knowing what can be done to a man in two minutes better than most, Sebastian starts to walk.

When he sees what’s up on that roof, something inside of him breaks.

In, out. In, out. And press, press, press.  
Jim is going to hate him for bringing him back but he has to. Sebastian feels for a pulse again. As long as he keeps his eyes closed, he can pretend it’s going to work. He can pretend that the smell of blood is only in his head, nothing but a remembrance from his days in the army. He can pretend that there is no bullet wound, that Jim isn’t covered in all kinds of disgusting substances and that Jim is only going cold because of the strong wind up on that ceiling. It’s important because if Jim doesn’t exist, then neither does Sebastian.

Eventually, he gives up. He crouches down next to Jim and holds onto him with one hand as he opens his pack of cigarettes with the other. Alright. Okay. He tries another angle to make sense of what has just happened. Supposing that Jim is dead-- outside of Sebastian, what does that mean? It means that Jim has given Sebastian a new mission – fixing Jim’s death. Sebastian will handle this, because he knows that he has to. Knows that Jim trusts him to do him this final favour. The body will need to be burned. All evidence needs to disappear; no one can know that Jim is dead because if Jim is dead, his network will fall apart. Sebastian is going to have to act as if nothing is wrong. He’s going to have to do what he has always done best; keep calm and carry on.

And he will. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he will pick himself up and figure out who to call and how to deal. As for right now, he’s going to stay here, and hold his boss’ cold hand while he smokes himself sick.

*

It’s almost dark by the time someone else goes through that door. Sebastian knows that he ought to be on his feet waving a gun, but that would require him to let go of Jim, and he can’t quite muster the energy to do that just now. Fortunately, he recognizes the man coming through; it’s Jenkins from the clean-up crew. The clean-up crew, come for Jim. _No._

“With all due respect, Mister Moran,” he says, hands up in fear, “it’s time to let go.”

And the man really is afraid, he realises slowly. Afraid of... Him? Why? Because... Jim is gone. Jenkins is afraid of him and what he’ll do in Jim’s absence. What _will_ he do in Jim’s absence? No. Don’t think of that now. Later. Later is for dealing and now is for smoking and holding hands. He raises a shaking hand to his lips and touches the cig but he’s suddenly uncertain as to what he wanted to do with it. His other hand squeezes tighter. There’s no response. Of course not. Jim’s dead. He can crush Jim’s bones if he wants to; there will still be no reaction. 

“Do you hear me, Mister Moran?” Jenkins asks, and Sebastian wonders what he looks like that Jenkins feels he has to confirm that. He looks down at himself. He’s got blood on his hands. He’s got blood on Jim’s suit. But Jim’s dead. “Look, sir, I need you to take his keys, and his phone, and the tags.”

Suddenly it’s all too much. Jim will never need those tags again because he doesn’t own Sebastian because he doesn’t own anyone because he’s _dead_ and Sebastian refuses that. He refuses to live in a world where Jim Moriarty doesn’t own him so he just shakes his head no. He shakes his head and he begins to cry. Jenkins is starting to look rather desperate.

“Please, Mister Moran,” he says, still with his hands half-raised, still standing back. “He needs you to have those things. He said that only you are allowed to touch the body.”

_The body._ Jim is officially not Jim anymore, but The Body. Sebastian shakes his head again even as he spits the cigarette out on the floor and licks his lips. Jim’s orders, even through that little scared man, are still Jim’s orders, and they feel like a blessing. Maybe Jim and The Body are two separate entities, now. Jim says he’s the only one allowed to touch The Body and so he _has to,_ has to do those things for Jim, and he knows that he’s being manipulated again and he’s so grateful for that he wants to weep. He is weeping. It doesn’t matter. He was never able to deny Jim anything, anyway.

So he reaches out with his shaking bloody hands and puts them in Jim’s pockets and gets the phone and the keys with barely a glance. For a moment he just holds on to them before he remembers that he has pockets, too, and puts them in his own, but then he turns back to Jenkins again. He can’t. He _can’t_. “Please not the tags.” He shakes his head again and his face is wet, wet from crying. For how long has he been crying? 

He doesn’t want the tags but Jenkins tells him that Jim says that he’ll regret it if he doesn’t take them so he reaches in under Jim’s shirt and grips at the chain even as his fingers slip over the cold flesh of The Body because Jim says so and Sebastian can’t tell Jim no, especially not now. He carefully doesn’t touch Jim’s head more than he has to in order to slip the chain over it, and then he puts them on again, just like before. The dog tags Jim wore when he died... Sebastian wasn’t supposed to ever wear these again because he was supposed to die first because it’s his job to protect Jim but now Jim is bleeding so he’s not doing his job right is he and just last night Jim said that he loved him, and why would he do that? Why would he say that and smile at Sebastian the next morning and actually eat his breakfast, why would he do those things and make Sebastian think that Jim was getting better if he... If he...

“We need to leave now, Mister Moran,” Jenkins says, coaxingly, as if he’s talking to a child, and Sebastian supposes he’s acting like one, clinging to Jim, refusing to realise that Jim is _gone,_ but he can’t move, he can’t.

“He told me he loves me,” he gasps, because he doesn’t know what else to say; it’s all he can think about. “Why would he do that?”

Jenkins looks very pitying suddenly and again Sebastian feels like a child and he’s going to kill Jenkins once this is over with anyway, and he can see it in his eyes that the other man knows it as well, which is why Sebastian thinks he’s actually being honest when he says, “maybe he just wanted to make you happy.”

He looks so desperate still, right through the pity, so desperate and in a hurry to leave, to get the evidence away, because he’s from the clean-up crew and all they ever do is hurry to erase evidence from the crime scenes and Jim is a crime scene now and Sebastian has got his tags back and everything just _hurts._ He can hear more words emerging from Jenkins' mouth but he can’t bring himself to listen to them, can’t bring himself to do anything but feel the pain in his chest anymore, and the next time he emerges from outside of himself it’s in the alleyway behind their crematory with Jim in the oven and Jenkins dead by his feet. The sun is rising, and Sebastian, true to himself, decides that that probably means it’s time to pull himself together.

He only wishes he knew how.


End file.
